Skylanders: Swap Force

The third in the Skylanders series, follow up to 2012's Skylanders: Giants.

Platform

Developer

Release Date

Nov 15th 2013

Nov 12th 2013

Oct 18th 2013

Oct 13th 2013

Story

The story and background for the new types of toys is as detailed below:

In Skylanders: Swap Force, Portal Masters embark on an all-new adventure in the mysterious Cloudbreak Islands, home to a mystical volcano that erupts every hundred years to replenish the magic in Skylands. During an epic battle, a brave group of Skylanders were caught in the volcano's eruption, which blasted them apart and sent them to Earth. But, the magic of the volcano gave these heroes a remarkable new power -- the ability to swap halves -- turning them into a special team known as the Swap Force.

Meanwhile, Kaos is back with a new evil plan. And now, Portal Masters everywhere must reassemble the Swap Force -- in their original form or in new combinations -- and send them back to Cloudbreak to save Skylands!

Characters

As well as being able to use all of the Skylanders from the original two games, Skylanders: Swap Force introduces 32 brand new characters to play as. This new lineup is made up of 16 Swap Force Skylanders which break apart into two pieces that can be mixed-and-matched between them all and 16 new regular "core" Skylanders that won't have the swapping feature.

Tech

Magna Charge

Spy Rise

Countdown

Wind-Up

Heavy Duty Sprocket

Big Bang Trigger Happy

Lightcore Countdown

Nitro Magna Charge

Kickoff Countdown

Springtime Trigger Happy

Water

Wash Buckler

Freeze Blade

Riptide

Punk Shock

Blizzard Chill

Anchors Away Gill Grunt

Lightcore Wham-Shell

Dark Wash Buckler

Nitro Freeze Blade

Fire

Blast Zone

Fire Kraken

Fryno

Smolderdash

Fire Bone Hot Dog

Lava Barf Eruptor

Lightcore Smolderdash

Volcanic Eruptor

Dark Blast Zone

Jade Fire Kraken

Undead

Night Shift

Rattle Shake

Roller Brawl

Grim Creeper

Phantom Cynder

Twin Blade Chop Chop

Lightcore Grim Creeper

Legendary Night Shift

Legendary Lightcore Grim Creeper

Quickdraw Rattle Shake

Life

Stink Bomb

Grilla Drilla

Bumble Blast

Zoo Lou

Thorn Horn Camo

Ninja Stealth Elf

Lightcore Bumble Blast

Dark Ninja Stealth Elf

Legendary Zoo Lou

Jolly Bumble Blast

Magic

Hoot Loop

Trap Shadow

Star Strike

Dune Bug

Super Gulp Pop Fizz

Mega Ram Spyro

Lightcore Star Strike

Dark Mega Ram Spyro

Enchanted Hoot Loop

Enchanted Lightcore Star Strike

Air

Free Ranger

Boom Jet

Pop Thorn

Scratch

Turbo Jet-Vac

Horn Blast Whirlwind

Lightcore Warnado

Legendary Free Ranger

Earth

Rubble Rouser

Doom Stone

Slobber Tooth

Scorp

Hyper Beam Prism Break

Knockout Terrafin

Lightcore Flashwing

Dark Slobber Tooth

That includes new poses for 16 old characters from the first two games and eight Lightcore versions of new and old, bringing the total number of new playable toys to 75. That's a grand total of 174 toys if you include the 99 from Spyro's Adventure and Giants.

In the brand new Starter Pack you will get three Skylanders, that's two Swap Force and one Series 3 returning Skylander. It'll be Wash Buckler, Blast Zone and Ninja Stealth Elf for the consoles and Free Ranger, Rattle Shake and Volcanic Eruptor for the 3DS. There is no Portal Owner's Pack this time due to the need to use the new portal.

To help differentiate between the old and new sets, the base of the Skylanders for Skylanders: Swap Force will be blue instead of the green/orange currently seen on the Spyro's Adventure and Giants toys.

Adventure Packs and Battle Packs

There will be two new Adventure Packs and two new Battle Packs as part of Swap Force. The Adventure Packs are called Tower of Time and Sheep Wreck Island. The Battle Packs are called Fiery Forge and Arkeyan Crossbow.

Tower of Time includes new Skylander "Pop Thorn" as well as the Tower itself and two Magic Items "Battle Hammer" and "Sky Diamond".

Swap Force Abilities

The new Swappable characters can do more than just swap, each of them has a movement ability associated with their lower half, this ability can unlock the special Swap Zones that you'll find in each level.

These abilities are exclusive to the swappable Swap Force characters and have not been retroactively given to existing characters. Just like there are two new characters for each element there are two characters for each ability (you can still manage to get one of each element and have one of each movement type if you choose them carefully).

Portal of Power

The game uses a brand new Portal of Power, redesigned to be able to recognise the ever changing forms of the Swap Force toys. It is unknown whether the new portal will work with Spyro's Adventure and Giants so don't go throwing the old portal out just yet.

To help with the swapping in the 3DS game you will be able to load in all of your figures rather than be stuck with the limit of just two figures that you had in the last two games.

Platforms

The game will appear on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii, Wii U, and 3DS as well as on mobile devices and the web.

Comments

first of the number 16873 poster ghost fury is right. it sucked it felt rushed bad graphics man I hate this game nothing more than a letdown of the greatis game searis. horible skylanders worst game ever in skylanders. the only kinda good thing is the fact that I beat it in under 6 houres.

like WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO CALI!!! you saying they know each other after swap force!?!?!?! the frosty levels were a bad thing just been there cose someone sead "this looks like a good AI!" and then they aded it for that guy and olso that aciant man bad bad. all I want is this game to be out of here!

I agree with everyone on this. Swap Force is undeniably awesome! I know that I went from Wii to PS3 and this was the first time I had played a Skylanders on PS3 but the graphics are amazing!... Some of the best. I still play it (last played- 3 days ago) and it is just as good. The graphics and look of the game was very different but it still felt like a Skylanders game. After you look past the changes you will see how good the graphics were and how much replay-ability it had.

I love the characters in Swap Force as well. I have every Skylander and most of the variants (not Quick Draw, but I'll find him one day!). They all have personality and they are all so lovable and fun. Although the characters aren't as unique as SSA, which had completely different characters, each character still felt so different. All my Swappers are maxed out with max money! I still have some levels to beat without damage and 3 more Score Mode challenges but that shows how great the game is! There is so much content I legit can't get bored.

Game play is never really repetitive or boring (although Kaos' Mom going in your portal gets pretty lame after a few plays to get the 3rd star. Still super cool though). Swap Force has such a freedom and beauty to each level and world. The colours are always bright and bring such a magical feel to Swap Force. You travel from tree tops to deserts, frozen lands to secret lairs. From talking with pirate sharks to playing festive games with yetis and the game does it so seamlessly.

Swap Force brought back boss battles and that is something I really enjoyed. The game also incorporated co-op features which the previous games hadn't. You share money in Swap Force, you can both do a lock puzzle, play battle arenas and run around together. It was really nice that they made multiplayer so much more enjoyable.

I think that Swap Force has been the only game in the franchise that actually felt like a game. Don't take this the wrong way, all the games are awesome. Playing Swap Force you don't feel like you are playing a Toys to Life game, but it rather feels like a normal platformer. The menu kicks it off beautifully and then with all the bonus maps and missions and challenges it feels like the game was in the focus not the toys. Yet the characters are some of the best. The character missions are also awesome and I think that they need a lot more for each character, maybe 20. But the game has so much to do and explore that it feels like a "game" and it is really enjoyable.

The game allows us to explore different areas of Skylands and it is awesome. There are so many different and wonderful things in Skylands that each game could take you somewhere else and it would be amazing. This made it feel like a different game but it also felt almost the most like a Skylanders game. The game offers so much freedom and the game doesn't feel like it's constricting you. This made the experience so much more fun as you can do what you want while still doing what the game wants! This goes back to the point about it focusing on the game rather than the characters. The games really need to be focused on the Skylanders and we sometimes find ourselves walking around not actually using the Skylanders. This game lets you choose strategically and doesn't force you. They leave the options open for you. The game has a lot for your Skylanders to do like the fighting and missions, this is what we want in the games. What's the point in having a massive collection of guys to just walk around, talk to people and then push random blocks? We need to use their abilities and get to enjoy the variety. The Swap Zones are a little bit of that but also all the Time Trials and Score Modes. Nightmare is awesome and we actually want to put on some legendary character because we will need them. So while it feels like just a game it has so much focus and your characters. In Trap Team I never used any old characters but in Swap Force I needed Terrafin for his burrow and Drobot for his range, speed and damage. Then I also wanted to do their missions and try the arenas with my old guys.

Swap Force was so enjoyable and I am still playing it. People complained about Tessa but she was never meant to replace Cali, they complained about not having Hugo but we had other help. The game is different but it has so much good stuff to look forward to. You are not in the same places as the previous games but you are helping out some other people on some other sky-lands! It is a great game and I really enjoy every element of it. I love all the games but Swap Force has something special. I guess you either love it or you don't. I am so glad most people love it!

Well that was a lot of randomness that you probably won't read! Go Skylanders! I can't wait for the next awesome idea (who thinks that Swapping was pretty unbelievable? I was so blown away when I first saw it!). Skylanders has been doing things no one else has done and that's why we love it!